News stories tagged with "alaska"

(12/09/11) Delegates from nearly 200 countries have been meeting over the past two weeks in South Africa for the United Nations Convention on climate change. St. Lawrence University professor Jon Rosales just returned from Durban. He's been advocating on behalf of villages on the Bering Strait, on the west coast of Alaska, which are the focus of his research. Julie Grant has more. more

(09/07/10) It's well documented that climate change is having its most dramatic effects in the Arctic. Sea ice is retreating and the permafrost is melting. The sea level is rising. Storms are more intense.

A St. Lawrence University professor is getting a first-hand view of how that's affecting remote villages in Alaska. And he wants to bring the views of the Native Americans who live there to the world. "The story is really becoming more human-centered, I think," says SLU environmental studies professor Jon Rosales. "It used to be the polar bears were the emblematic, charismatic up in the Arctic that people associated climate change with. But it's really human now and it's really impacting people in a very dramatic way."

Rosales returned to three villages on the Bering Strait this summer, where Alaska reaches out to Siberia. His wife's family lives in one of them. Rosales told David Sommerstein one village, Shaktoolik, faces imminent danger as the fall storm season begins.

(07/22/09) Yesterday, we reported that Arctic sea ice is melting faster than scientists (already alarmed at its disappearance) had expected. The National Snow and Ice Data Center says the rate has accelerated to 11.7% per decade.

That is far too fast for Native Americans who live along the Artic ice, on permafrost that's also thawing rapidly. Environmental biologist Jon Rosales teaches at St. Lawrence University. He spent this past spring getting a first hand look at effects of climate change in northern Alaska. He visited three villages on the Seward Peninsula, the part of Alaska that reaches west toward Siberia. It is our end of what used to be the land bridge between the two continents. He told Martha Foley that even in late spring, he says, the snow was horizontal. But, still, everything is too warm.

(07/13/07) NCPR is media sponsor for a concert of folk music featuring singer/songwriter Robin Hopper, at the Russell Town Hall this Saturday night (7 pm). Robin grew up in Potsdam, graduated from the Crane School of Music and now teaches music in Alaska. Todd Moe spoke with Robin about her music and life in the other North Country.

(11/15/05) In this half-hour documentary first recorded in April 2002, Brian Mann takes us to Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for an in-depth look at a place where the wilderness and the interests of development collide. The Refuge and its resources have returned to the center of national debate, as portions of it are once again being targeted for oil drilling.

(03/11/05) Aaron Robertson of Rouses Point and Nikki Kimball, formerly of Elizabethtown, who now lives in Montana, are the new national champions in snowshoeing. 80 athletes from across the country competed in the 5th Annual Nike U.S. National Snowshoe Championships in Anchorage, Alaska last weekend. Robertson won the men's 10 k race in 42:19 to claim his first national title. He's a music teacher at Northeastern Clinton High School, and told Todd Moe that he became an avid runner while a student at SUNY-Potsdam.

(04/08/02) The US Senate is expected to debate the country's energy plan this week. New York's senators oppose plans to drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This special half-hour documentary report on ANWR was produced by Brian Mann.

(08/06/01) Oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge is at the top of the agenda in Congress and at the White House. Brian Mann recently returned from a trip there, where he met with locals and activists, and send a report.

(07/06/01) Martha Foley talks with Brian Mann, who just returned from a rafting trip in Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

(01/02/01) An Ogdensburg teen has his sights set on this year's Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska. Paul French will be among the more than 80 competitors from around the world taking part in the 1200-mile trek through the Alaskan wilderness in March 2001.